'It's broken me': How online gambling ruined a woman's life

Online gambling is more likely to cause harm than any other type of betting. So why is the government about to make it legal?

Tracey had never been a gambler. She and her husband would sometimes play the pokies when they went to the pub and she'd bought the occasional Lotto ticket.

But her life changed when she was targeted by an online casino.

"I got addicted to gambling by an email that I received out of the blue."

The online casino was offering her inducements. And she took them. "I had the free spins and I did quite well. I used the $1000 free money."

The occasional spins became a regular habit. The habit became an escape from the weight of a life taking care of others and weathering some tough times.

"This online gambling took me to a place where there were no demands on me," Tracey says. "I was in my own space. It was peaceful. I even used to turn the sound off and that just became such a lure."

When the inducements were gone she began using her own money.

"My husband, at that stage, never had anything to do with our finances," she said. "I handled everything and I had done ever since we'd been married. He never looked at the accounts. So for me, it made it quite easy to go undetected."

When the losses began to mount Tracey began to panic. She moved from using her money to her employer's money.

"When I stole, it was going to be, 'That's the only time. I'm never going to do it again.' but that didn't happen. The hold was so great that as soon as I put the money back in our accounts I would use it again."

This went on for a year and as the guilt intensified Tracey said she "left it open" for her stealing to be uncovered.

One day she went to pay for some items at a store and found her accounts had been frozen.

"It was at that point that I had to actually tell my husband what I had been doing and then the living hell actually became real."

The reality was she had stolen more than $300,000. Now the long arm of the law was reaching out. Her anxiety exploded. What would her husband do? What would happen to their home?

"This gambling ruined me. It's broken me. The power it has over you is indescribable. It turns people who are good human beings - I was generous and helpful and I would save somebody before saving myself - it turns them into this sly, selfish person and all they want to do is get back online."

Tracey, which is not her real name, is telling her story now because she worries her experience might be repeated by others who fall into the trap of online gambling.

The market is growing fast already but is expected to expand as the government auctions off 15 licenses to online casino operators, expected to be snapped up by large, foreign-owned multinationals.

RNZ has obtained hundreds of pages of documents from officials and gambling operators, hoping to bend the ear of Internal Affairs Minister and Act deputy leader Brooke van Velden, who is ushering in the new regime.

The documents make it clear that online gambling is the most dangerous form of gambling.

"Compared to other forms of gambling surveyed, overseas online gamblers were most likely to experience harm from their gambling," a 2024 Cabinet paper signed off by van Velden says.

"There is a clear relationship between participation in online gambling and gambling harm."

In a 2020 survey nearly 40 percent of people who gambled with online casinos reported a harm-measure score showing some level of risk, from low to problem gambler status.

"This popularity with at-risk gamblers exceeds that of Class 4 (pokies) - New Zealand's highest risk land-based gambling," the Cabinet papers say.

"It's so easy to hide. People carry a device around in their pocket so it's available 24-7," says Andree Froude, spokesperson for the Problem Gambling Foundation. Gambling is often a hidden addiction, she says. "Having it online makes it even more hidden. That's why it is so risky. It's just so accessible."

So, why on earth, would the government auction off 15 licenses to online casino operators and allow them to advertise their sites to lure New Zealanders into parting with their money?

Tucked away in a studio on level two of RNZ's offices in central Auckland, Brooke van Velden explained her thinking.

A balancing act

"I don't like gambling," van Velden said. "But it doesn't mean that I want to ban it. I still acknowledge that there should be a marketplace for people who do want to access those services."

The way she sees it, New Zealanders are gambling with online casino sites now - spending anywhere between $300 million and $700 million in a 'grey market' where hard data is scarce - so the government might as well regulate it, tax it, and help people play safe.

She is currently working with DIA officials on key safety measures such as age verification settings (online gambling will be R-18) and spending and time limits.

"I feel very sad when I think about people who have fallen into addiction in that area and the way that it can affect families and communities," van Velden said. "What we're aiming to achieve is a much safer regime than what we currently have."

The balancing act for the Minister is to set up a new regime with 15 big new operators without increasing the overall size of the gambling market and the harm that goes with that.

The papers the Minister has brought to Cabinet, as the government navigates the policy maze in setting up the new market, lay out exactly this problem.

While the new regime "is not aimed at expanding online casino gambling, regulating the market could encourage New Zealanders to take up online gambling and increase exposure to harm," the Cabinet papers say.

"If licensed operators are considered more trustworthy than currently, and can promote themselves more effectively, this may result in an increase in participation and an increase in overall harm from online gambling."

The Cabinet papers note that revenue for Lotto and the pokies has been "growing in recent years despite strong growth in online casino gambling".

Indeed the Cabinet papers are based on the assumption that "the number of New Zealanders participating in online gambling will continue to increase over time, as will the size of the market".

More gambling equals more harm, the Cabinet papers say. "An increase in participation in online gambling will have a corresponding increase in harm. Both increasing participation and higher spends on online gambling are likely to lead to a greater proportion of harm as gambling online is an inherently risky activity, for some."

Helping people like Tracey, whose lives have been upended by gambling addiction, is paid for from the problem gambling levy.

The levy is currently set at $76 million and paid by the pokies, Lotto, the TAB and the casinos, based on their earnings and the extent to which problem gamblers name them as the main source of their addiction.

Online gambling operators do not currently pay the problem gambling levy - but they will do under the new regime that van Velden expected to be up and running from February 2026.

Van Velden said one of the advantages of regulating will be increased visibility on the nature and extent of online gambling.

"A lot more of everyday life is just happening online anyway. So more and more people are buying their clothes online, buying their shopping online, and more people will be doing their gambling online as well," she said.

"But we don't have very good concrete data on how many people currently gamble, so one of the benefits I find from doing regulation of this area is that we will have some clearer numbers come to the fore about how many people are actually using these platforms."

Sky City has been running an online casino operation out of Malta for the last five years.

The casino will bid for one of the 15 new licenses - it will need one to continue to legally offer online casino gambling under the new regime.

CEO Jason Walbridge said with online gambling a casino can track every move a player makes. "You see every individual action, every button pushed by a player," he said.

"You're able to track where the money comes from, so you know the source of funds, so you know it's legitimately earned. You're able to verify ID exactly," he said. "You know how much they spend, you know how often they visit, and you give players the ability to put in place measures to prevent harm."

Walbridge said Sky City's Malta operation has strict safety measures and can check in with players to make sure they are safe.

"You know, 'hey, how much do you want to lose?' You know, 'how often do you want to play?' 'Do you want to get checked in occasionally to make sure things are OK?' Those are really important things to make sure we're taking care of Kiwis."

'The shame has brought me to my knees'

None of that - not the assurances from the Minister nor the customer care promises from the casino - is reassuring to Tracey, who is now rebuilding her life with the help of the Problem Gambling Foundation.

Her husband stood by her but the civil and criminal court cases dragged on for a year. Tracey cashed in her KiwiSaver, refinanced her house, and repaid her employer.

"We ended up giving back another third again on top of what I'd stolen. But when it came to light, I actually, for the first time, went through my bank accounts and had a look to see what I'd done. I could not believe how quickly the amounts had escalated."

Tracey got a sentence of community detention. She knows that some people hearing her story will say she should have gone to jail.

"Let me tell them, there is nothing they can say or think about me that I haven't already thought about myself. The self hatred is overbearing at times. The shame has brought me to my knees."

Tracey looks back and asks herself, why was online gambling different? Why had she not got addicted to the pokies that she and her husband played now and then?

"To do that, you've got to go out, you've got to go into pubs, and people will see you and start pointing and saying, 'Oh, she's there again,' sort of thing. This was completely in your own time, in your own place, wherever you wanted to do it. I did it on my phone. I could do it on my laptop. I could do it at whatever time I wanted to."

Tracey said New Zealand already has a big problem with gambling (we spend well over $3 billion on gambling each year) and thinks opening up the market for online casinos will make things worse.

"To this day, I'm still bombarded with emails from online casinos," she said.

"It doesn't matter how many you block them or send it to junk mail, they just keep coming. There's no way this could make it any safer for New Zealand. It's just opening up a bigger can of worms and will make problem gambling in New Zealand ten times worse."

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